Posts Tagged composting

Henderson on Hotbeds

March 22, 2008 at 10:57 pm · Filed under Notes ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Notes based on Gardening for Profit (Chapter 9) by Peter Henderson.

Hotbeds are something we don’t see a lot of, despite their simplicity and usefulness. The idea is that compost generates heat, and seeds need heat to germinate. So why not put seeds directly on the compost pile (the “hot bed”) and coax those little buggers into making their debut a little early in the season? Henderson was doing this in the 1800s, and the logic still applies today:

This is a freshly made hotbed at Singing Pig Farm. It’s about 2 feet tall, 8 feet wide, and 40 feet long. (Disclaimer: I’m terrible at judging dimensions, so give or take about 20 feet on the width and length.) It’s topped with a layer of straw to level the surface and provide additional insulation. Under the straw is a rotting pile of leaves and grass clippings, courtesy of a landscaping company that was happy to get rid of it. The temperature in the pile when it was formed was 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Read the rest of this entry »

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Henderson on Sh—uh, Manures

February 4, 2008 at 10:01 pm · Filed under Notes ·Tagged , , , , ,

Notes based on Gardening for Profit (Chapter 7) by Peter Henderson.

Back then when horses did all the work, there was lots of horse manure to be had. So Henderson took advantage of it and really piled it on.

At least six months before applying it, the manure was dumped in a natural depression. If there wasn’t one, they dug one out 18-24″ deep. They put up a 6′ fence around it. The wagons were pulled up next to the fence and fresh manure was tossed in, spread out evenly throughout the depression. Pigs were kept in the enclosure to break things up, and they were fed weeds and unsold vegetables from the field.

  • I wonder how large this manure pit needed to be. I guess it depends on how much manure he needed, which depends on how much land he was preparing (he’d spread 50 to 100 tons per acre).
  • Also, how many pigs? Two? Ten? That’s probably a function of field size and manure quantity, as well.

Henderson was a big fan of horse manure, and not just because it was plentiful. He considered it 1/3 more valuable than that of cattle and pigs, in terms of weight (i.e. 100 lbs of horse manure would work just as well as 130 lbs of cattle or pig manure). He also cites horse manure as being extra beneficial as a pulverizer on stiff soils. Read the rest of this entry »

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